FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 27, 2003
Contact:  Marie DesOrmeaux
(202) 225-3772
 
Ross Calls on Secretary Tommy Thompson 
to Improve Access to Health Care for Rural America
 
(Washington, D.C.) As a member of the Congressional Rural Health Care Coalition, Fourth District Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) sent a letter on Wednesday to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, urging him to reconsider the FY04 budget recommendations in regard to rural health care.  A number of the provisions included in the Administration's fiscal year 2004 budget further threaten the access and affordability of health care in our nation's small communities.   More than 25 House Members who represent such communities signed on to the letter.

“I felt it was important to express my concerns to Secretary Thompson,” Ross said.  “Just last week, I met with healthcare providers in our district who turned out in droves to discuss the problems they are experiencing in providing for rural Arkansas’s health care needs.  As their Representative, it is my duty to object to the Administration’s budgetary recommendations and ensure that residents in our rural communities have proper access to affordable health care.”

The text of the letter is as follows:

Dear Secretary Thompson:

We are writing to urge your reconsideration of spending and policy proposals that would make it more difficult for Americans in rural areas to receive adequate health services.

As you know, Americans in rural communities face unique health care challenges. While 25 percent of Americans live in rural areas, only 9 percent of physicians practice in these communities.  Hospitals and clinics are few and far between.   Working people in rural areas are less likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance and more likely to live in poverty than their urban and suburban neighbors. 

Rural America is also home to a greater proportion of senior citizens than other parts of the country.  While we appreciate the President’s reference to modernizing Medicare in his State of the Union address, we have concerns about the effect of his proposal on rural America.  The President’s plan appears modeled on the existing Medicare + Choice program, which allows private managed-care companies to offer benefits packages through Medicare. 

In rural America, Medicare + Choice has left too many seniors behind.  Most private insurers have determined that providing a quality benefits package in sparsely populated areas is simply not profitable.  Many private insurers have pulled out of rural markets, and those that remain have reduced benefits - often by removing the prescription drug option that is the very reason Congress created the program.  In 2002, only 5 percent of 

Medicare beneficiaries in rural areas had a choice of Medicare HMO providers, and the vast majority had no private prescription-drug plans available at all.  Clearly, we cannot depend on the private sector alone to provide this important benefit to our rural seniors.

Nor can we expect the private sector to provide other vital medical services at their own expense.  Yet that is exactly what we are doing in rural communities under the Medicare program.  Because of inequities in the Medicare payment formula, reimbursements to rural hospitals and providers often do not cover the cost of the service.  We are disappointed that the President’s budget did not include resources to restore fairness to the system.  Without adequate payments, struggling rural health care facilities and providers will have no choice but to shut their doors, leaving their patients with little or no access to care.

Finally, we are concerned about the provision in the President’s budget request that would allow states to cut benefits for certain Medicaid populations.  Rural health care facilities that serve comparatively small populations are likely to be tempting targets for savings – despite the fact that rural communities are home to a disproportionate share of Americans living at or near the poverty line.  For many families in rural America, travel to a facility in another city or county is prohibitively expensive.  The choice is nearby care or no care at all.

Options like this are part of the vicious circle that is eroding the last vestiges of rural life in America.  Lack of services send rural families fleeing to cities while lack of population keeps new services out.  

At its founding, our great nation was primarily rural.  We were a society of farmers and small close-knit communities.  If we lose what is left of rural life in this country, we lose something of what it means to be an American. 

Thank you for your consideration of this matter. 

Sincerely,

Reps. Ron Kind, Mike Ross, Ed Case, Charlie Stenholm, Sam Farr, Marion Berry, Maurice Hinchey, John Murtha, John Tanner, Artur Davis, Rodney Alexander, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Max Sandlin, Brian Baird, Earl Pomeroy, Jim Turner, Lincoln Davis, Tim Holden, Mike Thompson, Michael Michaud, Brad Miller, Frank Balance, Darlene Hooley, Brad Carson, Tom Allen, Tammy Baldwin


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